Fears as PNG diseases spread

Authorities in Papua New Guinea are battling to contain simultaneous outbreaks of influenza, dysentery and cholera.

So far, nearly 120 people have died and thousands have been infected by the diseases in Morobe province on the country's north coast.

It is Papua New Guinea's first cholera outbreak and medics fear the situation will get much worse before it gets better.

At a helipad in Lae, men are loading aid kits and soap into a small helicopter. They are bound for Menyamya, 100 kilometres to the south-west, where so far 60 people have died from seasonal influenza and nearly 4,000 have been infected.

Thirty people have also died from a severe form of dysentery called shigella that has infected 700 others.

If that was not enough for PNG's under-resourced health system to deal with, in Wasu to the north, 13 people have died amid the country's first outbreak of cholera and 200 others have contracted the water-borne disease.

Health worker Jack Aita is heading back to Menyamya on the loaded chopper.

"It has affected both the community in economic ways, and as well as family ways, because so many have died from the illness," he said.

Lae's disaster coordination centre is packed with donations of water tanks, water containers, aid kits, soap and chlorine tablets.

But the disaster director Roy Kamen is struggling to get the badly needed supplies out to the affected communities.

"We are having difficulties going into Wasu and Menyamya also, because the helicopter has a limited capacity of cargoes to carry," he said.

"And we are moving small cargoes at a time... which is not what we should be doing."